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Given 2nd term, Obama now facing new urgent task

Posted:
11/07/2012 07:11:48 PM MST

President Barack Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama faces a new urgent task now that he has a second term, working with a status-quo Congress to address an impending financial crisis that economists say could plunge the country into further recession if not resolved.

"You made your voice heard," Obama said in his acceptance speech, signaling that he believes the bulk of the country is behind his policies. It's a sticking point for House Republicans, sure to balk at that.

The same voters who gave Obama four more years in office also elected a divided Congress, sticking with the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans kept their House majority.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke of a dual mandate. "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs," he said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had a more harsh assessment.

"The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.

Obama's more narrow victory was nothing like the jubilant celebration in 2008, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world.

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This time, Obama ground it out with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.

The most pressing challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health; 23 million people out of work or in search of better jobs; civil war in Syria; a menacing standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await. While Republicans control the House, Democrats have at least 52 votes in the Senate and Republicans 45. One newly elected independent isn't saying which party he'll side with, and races in Montana and North Dakota were not yet called.

Votes also were being counted Wednesday in the Montana and Washington gubernatorial races.

Obama's list of promises to keep includes many holdovers he was unable to deliver on in his first term, such as rolling back tax cuts for upper-income people, overhauling immigration policy and reducing federal deficits. Six in 10 voters said in exit polls that taxes should be increased, and nearly half of voters said taxes should be increased on incomes over $250,000, as Obama has called for.

"It's very clear from the exit polling that a majority of Americans recognize that we need to share responsibility for reducing the deficit," Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told CNN. "That means asking higher-income earners to contribute more to reducing the deficit."

Even before Obama gets to his second inaugural on Jan. 20, he must deal with the threatened "fiscal cliff." A combination of automatic tax increases and steep across-the-board spending cuts are set to take effect in January if Washington doesn't quickly reach a budget deal. Experts have warned that the economy could tip back into recession without an agreement.

Obama repeated his campaign slogan of moving "forward" repeatedly in a victory speech early Wednesday in his hometown of Chicago.

"We will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there," he said. "As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It's not always a straight line. It's not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won't end all the gridlock, or solve all our problems, or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus, and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin."

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